For many lesbian couples who are trying to have children, the L word they are hanging out for isn’t the TV series, but law reform, reports Anna Whitelaw.
Late last year, the Victorian state government agreed to overhaul its outdated laws on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), following a four-year inquiry by the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
The Commission’s report, handed down last June, recommended sweeping changes to the laws governing fertility treatment.
It was music to the ears of lesbian couples who are trying for children.
At present, Victoria’s laws regarding reproduction are among the most restrictive and convoluted in the country. As the first Australian state to allow IVF, Victoria’s 20-year-old fertility laws - once the most progressive in the country - are now hopelessly outdated. Even the Victorian Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, has conceded that they lag behind the rest of the country.
Initially, fertility treatments were restricted to infertile married couples. In 2000, a straight single woman, Lisa Meldrum and her doctor, Dr John McBain, challenged these discriminatory laws. A landmark Federal Court ruling ruled in Meldrum’s favour, paving the way for lesbians – and single women – to have children through ART. However, unlike heterosexual couples, lesbians and single women are still required to prove they are ‘clinically infertile’ in order to be eligible for treatment.
Consequently, many fertile lesbian women wanting children are left with no choice but to ask a male friend or acquaintance to donate sperm, and try to inseminate themselves at home.
Due to an obscure Victorian law, while fertility clinics can store and test sperm, it is illegal for doctors to actually inseminate fertile women; a situation which will also change under the proposed law reforms.
“Although doctors want to help, it puts them in a precarious position, because they fear being liable for criminal charges,” explains Kiri Bear from Prospective Lesbian Parents, a support group for lesbians who are trying to having children.
Together with her partner, Kate Clark, Bear has previously been excluded from accessing ART, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The couple, who have been together for three years, having been planning their first child for over 12 months, but face a myriad of legal obstacles.
“[T]he whole business is frustrating; it’s lengthy and it’s expensive, and the law only makes it more complicated,” Bear says.
Unfortunately, self-insemination only has a slim chance of success; and may also carry greater risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, given the lack of access to screening techniques.
Rowena Allen and her partner, Kaye Bradshaw, were among the fortunate few lesbian couples who manage to conceive through this DIY method, with the help of a close gay friend who donated his sperm.
“I wasn’t clinically infertile; I was just socially infertile - as in I didn’t want to have sex with a bloke,” jokes Allen.
In order to prove clinical infertility, Allen had to try home insemination for six months.
“If that legislation wasn’t in place, we would’ve been able to go into the clinic the next month,” says Allen. “Even so, we didn’t think it would work.”
As it turned out, they conceived on just their second attempt. Allen recently gave birth to their four-week-old daughter Alexandra.
“We got ridiculously lucky,” Allen acknowledges. “It’s very hit and miss, and there isn’t a lot of information readily available about how to do it properly. I’ve encountered women who desperately want to have children and who have been trying unsuccessfully for years.”
Another Melbourne couple, Jeanine and her partner Lisa, were initially forced to travel to Canberra to visit a fertility specialist, before being referred to Melbourne IVF five years ago. The couple now have two children, a four-year-old son and a five-month-old daughter, both conceived using sperm from an anonymous donor through IVF.
“It was quite stressful because we didn’t know if we’d be eligible,” Jeanine recalls. “We were fortunate to be in a financial position to pursue IVF, and to travel interstate, unlike many couples; and we were lucky enough to fall pregnant on our second try. Even then, the whole process took 18 months; six months longer than it would have if we’d be able to go straight to IVF.”
Some lesbian couples are making expensive, monthly pilgrimages to interstate fertility clinics (a process known as ‘reproductive tourism’) in an effort to fall pregnant, because they are refused treatment in Victoria.
“It’s simply ludicrous, and blatantly discriminatory, the hoops lesbian women currently have to jump through in order to access fertility treatment, just because we don’t have a male partner,” argues Demetra Giannakopolous, the co-convenor of the Victorian Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby.
“For many women, the removing of barriers to accessing ART services in their own state will have a huge benefit financially and emotionally,” explains Rainbow Families Council spokesperson Felicity Marlowe. “It will give people the option and the choice of whether or not to use fertility treatment, which will minimize the financial cost, the stress, and the impact on people’s employment and their relationships.”
Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls has thrown his weight behind the reforms, which are expected to be introduced mid-year.
“Our laws need to keep pace with advances in medical technology and changing family structures”, Mr Hulls told The Age. “[T]he fact that a child is wanted, is loved, and is cared for, in the government’s view is far more important than the way in which that child was conceived.”
While it will come too late for Rowena and Kaye, and Jeanine and Lisa, the law reforms will make things easier for many lesbian couples like Kiri Bear and her partner.
As Bear says, “Now it’s just a matter of waiting for these changes to actually happen.”
For many lesbian couples who are trying to have children, the L word they are hanging out for isn’t the TV series, but law reform, reports Anna Whitelaw.
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